No matter the kind of service you provide or goods you manufacture, selling your material to another business is key to financial growth and company health. Major contracts with other businesses often represent years of revenue and repeat sales. To sell to other businesses, it is important to to know where you stand with other businesses: how your material is selling, what benefits are most important to these other companies, and why. While you can sell to other businesses organically with a different method for each potential client, you are going to find that having a formal B2B selling process fits popular online sales management tools. Using these tools, you know exactly what stage of the selling process you are in and what you or your sales staff need to do in order to close the deal.
A B2B selling process maps out specific steps that must be completed in order to begin, execute, and close any sales transaction. Each formal process is different, and you need choose one compatible with your business and customers. Sales processes include everything from initial contact, trial periods, price negotiations, product demonstrations, contract signing and delivery. Regardless of what steps you decide to use, you are going to find there are many pros, and only a few cons of using a formal sales process. Here are a few.

Pros:

Better Teamwork

For starters, everyone in the office is going to know where they are when it comes to landing a new client, signing them and reaching the final contract. With a well understood process, the staff won't jump ahead and forget important stakeholders or important information.

Accountability

Using a process also creates a "paper" trail for you to follow. Having a definitive area that indicates where a sale failed allows you to alter your approach and correct any specific method you might have for the sales process in the future. If the 4'th step in the process fails often, you will know what to improve and how to improve it for a better closure rate.

Cons:

One downside mentioned often with establishing a formal B2B sales process is change. Some sales staff might prefer doing what they have done for years successfully. Even a formal process can be created that allows sales staff to improvise and use their intuition, so sales styles are not an obstacle. But any new process will require change. However, a good sales team will adapt and improve with change when they see the benefits of a more successful company.